Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring ― A Biography of an American Artist

SOON TO BE A TV SERIES WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ANDREW HAIGH

New York Times Book Critics Favorite Book of the Year · Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

“It’s all here: the grade school Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss; the adolescent acid trips; the fondness for Post-it notes and flying saucers; the long tails of Dubuffet and Burroughs; the encounters with Madonna, Warhol, and one game-changer of a subway Johnny Walker Red poster. Brad Gooch takes us deep into Keith Haring’s imagination while somehow managing to fix the aura and energy of the 1980s New York art scene to the page. A keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come.”—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Revolutionary: Sam Adams

A stunning life of the iconic American artist, Keith Haring, by the acclaimed biographer Brad Gooch.

In the 1980s, the subways of New York City were covered with art. In the stations, black matte sheets were pasted over outdated ads, and unsigned chalk drawings often popped up on these blank spaces. These temporary chalk drawings numbered in the thousands and became synonymous with a city as diverse as it was at war with itself, beset with poverty and crime but alive with art and creative energy. And every single one of these drawings was done by Keith Haring.

Keith Haring was one of the most emblematic artists of the 1980s, a figure described by his contemporaries as “a prophet in his life, his person, and his work.” Part of an iconic cultural crowd that included Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haring broke down the barriers between high art and pop culture, creating work that was accessible for all and using it as a means to provoke and inspire radical social change. Haring died of AIDS in 1990. To this day, his influence on our culture remains incontrovertible, and his glamorous, tragically short life has a unique aura of mystery and power.

In this definitive Keith Haring biography, Brad Gooch, noted biographer of Flannery O’Connor and Frank O’Hara, was granted access to Haring’s extensive archive. He has written a biography that will become the authoritative work on the artist. Based on interviews with those who knew Haring best and drawing from the rich archival history, Brad Gooch sets out to capture the magic of Keith Haring: a visionary and timeless icon.

This authoritative art biography reveals the man behind the icons, capturing the relentless creativity and historical importance of a once-in-a-generation artist:

• Subway Drawings: Discover the full story behind the thousands of ephemeral chalk drawings that transformed New York City’s subway system into a public gallery for everyone.
• Art for Everybody: Explore Haring’s democratic belief in breaking down the barriers between high art and popular culture, from his Pop Shop to his public murals.
• An American Artist: Witness Haring’s journey from a childhood in Kutztown, Pennsylvania―learning to draw cartoons from his father―to his meteoric rise as a global art phenomenon.
• The AIDS Crisis: Understand how Haring confronted the devastating epidemic that shaped his later work and tragically cut short his life and career at the age of 31.

Brad Gooch is a poet, novelist, and biographer whose previous ten books include the bestselling Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, winner of the 2025 Lambda Award for Biography, a New York Times Book Critics Favorite Pick of the Year, and soon to be a television series from Andrew Haigh; Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times bestseller; City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara; Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America; and the memoir Smash Cut. He is the recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, and lives in New York City.